National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci defended “gain-of-function” research in 2012 — wherein scientists extract viruses from the wild and engineer them to infect humans in order to study potential therapeutics including vaccines — as research worth risking a pandemic over.
“In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?” Fauci wrote in a paper reported on by The Australian. “Scientists working in this field might say — as indeed I have said — that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks.”
BOMBSHELL! Dr Fauci in 2012 wrote that “gain of function” research to juice up bat viruses was worth risking a pandemic: “the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks. It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature” @SharriMarkson scoop https://t.co/S7ILuzgnNw pic.twitter.com/iwyPCPctId
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) May 28, 2021
The revelation of Fauci’s 2012 defense of the research comes as new reports emerge, breathing new life into the lab-leak theory among the political establishment that dismissed the origin hypothesis, which was always credible, as a conspiracy theory.
Reporting on previously undisclosed intelligence this month, the Wall Street Journal published a story of three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who were hospitalized with COVID-like symptoms in November 2019, preceding the pandemic’s first outbreak in the Hubei province. The lab, known for its relaxed safety protocols, was reportedly collaborating with the Chinese military and conducting gain-of-function research into bat coronaviruses, according to the Trump State Department in a fact sheet not disputed by officials in the Biden administration.
Two years after Fauci’s defense of the high-stakes research, the U.S. government deemed the work so dangerous it was banned. According to longtime journalist…
Read the full story here: Source: Fauci In 2012: Gain-Of-Function Research Is Worth Pandemic Risk